2014 Fall Teaching Conference-Learning to Risk, Risking to Learn: Innovation and Research in the Classroom

A teacher who innovates models the risk-taking that students must do to change ineffective study habits and tackle challenging college level content and skills. Adam Persky, award-winning pharmacy professor and past director of the Center for Educational Excellence in Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, increased participants' confidence to innovate by showing them some of the research findings in cognitive psychology, education, and physiology that hold direct implications for more adventuresome teaching. Dr. Persky, who still says he still gets nervous before he teaches, demonstrated a number of easily adaptable classroom activities that could be applied in teaching. Whether you are risk averse, fully embrace change, or are just tired of the same old thing, you (and your students) will benefit from this workshop. A Certificate of Achievement will be available to those who attend this workshop and complete the requirements.

The goal of this conference was to help each faculty participant make tangible progress toward implementing and assessing new strategies for teaching critical thinking. Author and educator Terry Doyle led an interactive “minds-on” workshop that built on the foundation that has been laid at previous conferences. He demonstrated various ways teachers can create a thinking classroom, plan critical thinking activities using course content, make the activities relevant to course content, develop critical thinking assignments for students, and assess students' learning of critical thinking skills.

How do you get students to want, even love, to learn instead of just putting in seat time and checking off boxes? How can you turn enthusiasm for social media into classroom excitement for your subject? How do you turn tests and projects into highly motivational events that help every student realize his or her potential? To help you answer these questions, IPFW again welcomed Todd Zakrajsek, Executive Director, Academy of Educators, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who specializes in motivational teaching strategies rooted in the psychology of learning. Todd led an intensive hands-on workshop where participants learned and practiced evidence-based teaching strategies.

Part I: Evidence-based Strategies that Help Students Stay and Learn

In this workshop participants saw and practiced evidence-based strategies to help their students learn and persist in the course until the final exam. They applied criteria for choosing the strategy that would best achieve their course objectives and complement their teaching style. By the end of the session they had developed a plan for implementing at least one new strategy.

Part II: Authentic Assessment for Learning and Retention

So you are convinced that real-world, problem-based, peer-led, flipped, and other alternative teaching strategies engage your students and help them learn. It's the design and implementation of the assessment that makes you hesitant to adopt these alternatives. In this session participants saw examples of alternative assessments and examined the implications for grading. They wrote a description for an alternative assessment of their own and outlined a rubric for grading.

How can working backward move you forward in your efforts to document teaching effectiveness and student learning? George Rehrey, Principal Instructional Consultant with the Indiana University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning showed participants how using the four-step “backward course design model” could help them clearly measure what students have learned.

“Teachers Ignited” 5 minute illustrated mini-lectures by colleagues

2012 Fall Teaching Conference-Flipped, Blended and Stirred

"Flipped," "blended," or "stirred," are attention-getting ways of referring to the change from "teacher-centered" to "learner-centered" learning environments in higher education. Through the strategic use of technology, teachers can help students optimize their out of class time, approximate one-on-one tutoring, and differentiate their offerings from others teaching the same subject matter. Reversing the course design frees faculty to focus class time on inquiry, interaction and applying knowledge. Dr. Barbi Honeycutt, Director of Graduate Teaching Programs at North Carolina State University and owner of Flip It Consulting introduced these "flipped" teaching strategies and helped participants practice and reflect on techniques they could use to engage students, improve critical thinking, and enhance learning outcomes.

2012 Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum

Resourceful critical thinking and problem solving is one of six fundamental knowledge and skill goals that IPFW graduates must attain. What is critical thinking in your discipline? What methods are most effective in teaching critical thinking? How do you assess critical thinking as a learning outcome? The day long interactive workshop was led by Bill Roberson, Director of the Institute for Teaching, Learning & Academic Leadership at SUNY Albany and advocate for transforming the way we define and structure learning experiences for novices in our disciplines.This conference benefitted new and experience faculty and was of special interest to teachers of Area VI General Education courses.

2011 Fall Teaching Conference- RE: Visioning U

Personal transformation was the theme of the 2011 Fall Teaching Conference, which was desinged to help you get control over your time while freeing yourself to become a more effective teacher and researcher. Keynote speaker Doug Robertson, author of the acclaimed Making Time, Making Change, and confessed "perfectionist in recovery", led participants through concrete steps they could take to effectively manage the boundaries of student-teacher relationships while improving student learning. Concurrent sessions addressed important aspects of faculty work encountered by pre-tenure, tenured, part-time, and future faculty alike, including creating and using scholarship, work-life balance, career planning, preparing for promotion and more.

2011 Technology Showcase: Learning Anywhere, Anytime

Friday, April 8th, 9 a.m-3 p.m. in the Walb Student Union

Mobile technologies and eTextbooks are sailing into the mainstream of teaching in higher education, according to Educause's 2011 Horizon Report. Our Technology Showcase offered the opportunities to try out the iPad and use interactive eTextbooks. Dr. Malcolm Brown, Director of the Educause Learning Initiative, engaged attendees in "seeking the evidence of impact" of the pedagogical innovations that mobile technologies support. Attendees leared from IPFW faculty innovators and from a special Trends in Mobile Learning session.

2010 Fall Teaching Conference-The Scholarship of Engagement: Integrating Teaching, Service and Research

Thursday, August 19th, 9 a.m.-2:50 p.m. in Liberal Arts 159

Nationally known speaker, Patti Clayton, founding director of the Center for Excellence in Curricular Engagement at North Carolina State University, and Senior Scholar with the Center for Service and Learing at IUPUI, along with IPFW and Ball State colleagues discussed their experiences with service learning and provided practical recommendations for engaging in scholarly teaching and research around service learning.

2009 Spring Teaching Conference: Enhancing Learning through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Friday, March 20, 2009 at IPFW

Dr. Kathleen McKinney, author of “Enhancing Learning Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” and holder of the Cross Endowed Chair in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University, gave the keynote address. Concurrent sessions included discussion of the nature of scholarship, the fundamentals of doing SoTL research, examples of SoTL and SoTL-related work, and discussion of the future of SoTL at IPFW.

Marc Lowenstein, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and a proponent of academically centered advising, delivered the keynote speech and led a breakout session at this half-day teaching conference open to all IPFW faculty and staff.